Analysis of the Relationship between Public Schools Distribution and Population in Kaduna State, Nigeria

The paper was aimed at examining the relationship between the distribution of public primary and secondary schools and the population in Kaduna State. The study used GPS Map 78 to ascertain the location of the schools through field observation. The student population was obtained from the headteacher while the population was obtained from the projected 2006 census figure. A multistage sampling method was adopted to select nine LGAs within the three senatorial zones of the state. Descriptive statistics using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (v25), Spearman Rank Correlation, and Pearson Correlation was used for data analysis. The 1907 public schools (1634 public primary and 273 secondary schools) were found. The result revealed that the overall Location Quotient (LQ) value for all public schools (primary, junior, and secondary schools) is 1.14 which represents a moderate concentration of public schools. The result showed that Kaduna South LGA has the least LQ (0.23) and is closely followed by Zaria LGA (0.56), while Kajuru LGA has the most concentration of schools with an LQ of 2.2. The result also revealed that LQ for Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) value varies from (1.9) in Kagarko LGA, having the highest concentration of JSS and to 0.5 in Jemaa LGA The Spearman Rank Correlation with the coefficient of 0.188 revealed a weak positive relationship between the provision of public schools and students' population while Pearson Correlation established a negative relationship between the distribution of public schools and general population with the coefficient of -0.19. The study concluded that there is no relationship between the population and distribution of public schools in Kaduna State.